May 4: Bullet in a Bible

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming

This summer I hear the drumming

Four dead in Ohio

–Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

From Day 2 of Losing My Religions:

Going to Kent State the summer of ‘85 also pushed me further down the road of freethinking. It was the first time I wasn’t surrounded by fellow Catholics. It was the first time I had knowingly met a non-Christian. It was my first time around college students. And despite years of studying wars, it was the first time I really faced history.

The latter came like a thunderbolt. We were touring Kent’s campus when the guide pointed out a hole in a metal sculpture. It was from May 4 1970, when the National Guard fired into the crowd of protesting students, killing four, paralyzing another, and seriously wounding many more.

This may seem silly, given that today we are aware of so many incidents of state-sponsored violence. By the 2020s, we’ve watched, for example, Officer Derek Chauvin slowly, almost casually take George Floyd’s life while others looked on, including someone filming the murder.

But in 1985, I wasn’t aware of anything like this. (Remember: small town, Catholic schools, no internet.) It was only when I saw the bullet hole that I realized agents of the state had turned military rifles on fellow citizens, mowing them down with bullets so powerful they passed right through thick metal. 

This stopped me cold. I stood there, my right hand on the back of my sweating neck, staring at the hole in the sculpture even as the tour moved on.